my calendar told me that today is my craniversary – that’s what folks who’ve had brain surgery call their craniotomy anniversary dates. and it’s worth noting and celebrating cuz it is no small thing to go through. for those who weren’t in my life 6 years ago, my surgery was 7-8 hours under anesthesia and i was in the hospital from tuesday through friday recovering. it was at west jeff hospital on october 13th, 2020, during the pandemic, in between a couple of hurricanes (delta and zeta) that affected south louisiana.

it’s kinda crazy thinking back to that time. october was past pandemic lockdown times but there wasn’t a vaccine yet and folks were still dying left and right. i remember being a bit scared of being in a hospital for several days not really able to wear a mask because of the surgery. but really, covid was the least of my worries at that moment. though the surgery was a complete success, i’d come out of it with some swallowing and speaking issues that were very challenging, a droopy right eye and horrible double vision, not to mention the 16 staples holding my skull together and the bruising and swelling everywhere. (i’ll spare everyone the photo here on this page but if you wanna see, you can click the link.)

i just spent some time reading back over all my brain saga entries here on this site and looking back through my instagram photos and my mealtrain page, which we also used for updates before, during and after surgery for a while. it seems i only started putting my thoughts here on this blog 3 months after surgery; before that it was all mealtrain and facebook, which is much harder to go back through. if you wanna have a sense of what that time was like for me, feel free to use the above links.

anyways. so today i celebrate 6 years post-surgery how? with my 12th radiation appointment! lol i guess my brain likes the month of october to get worked on. week 3 is moving along. sunday and yesterday i tried out the zofran to see how it would work on my nausea. sunday it was great – helped me feel good enough to watch the awful saints game with friends. yesterday it worked pretty well, even through treatment – i did not walk out of there feeling bad which lately i have been. but i did note it made me very drowsy. today, it didn’t work as well. the directions say to take it 1-2 hours before treatment if that’s the time you experience the worst side effects – and it is – so i’ve been taking it around 11-11:30am so it’s kicked in plenty by the time i’m down at UMC for my treatment. (though my appointment is for 2pm i am often there early and they take me back early; how early depends on whether there is an open parking spot in the oncology lot. and this week i’ve been lucky!) not sure what was different between yesterday and today but i had to lay down when i got home after radiation today and rest for a bit til the nausea wave subsided. and a few hours later, my stomach is still a little bit off. it’s supposed to last 8 hours so i know it hasn’t worn off yet. just didn’t work as well today.

but it’s fine. it’s not the level of nausea where you actually want to (or do) throw up. it’s just that annoying level of unease that makes you feel icky and like not doing anything. thankfully since i got my taxes done late last night (woohoo!), i don’t really have anything i need to be doing. i wanted to work on some button designs for saturday – it’s no kings: vote early day and i’ll be participating with my pop-up protest folks at the circle on esplanade from 3-5pm as part of new orleans activities for the day. we’ll have 7 simultaneous locations around the city doing visibility actions to encourage early voting, which here in louisiana starts next tuesday october 20th and runs for a week, excluding sunday. hoping i actually feel well enough to be out there but the weather is supposed to be fall-like with highs in the 70s so it shouldn’t be too taxing on me to go wave some signs and hand out some flyers and buttons for a few hours. if i manage to get the buttons made. stop by and say hello if you are out and about on saturday or join us!